What a day, he thought. And it still ain't over.
The videotape gave Moffitt a headache. Typical convenience-store setup: cheapo black-and-white with stuttered speed, so the fuzzy images jerked along like Claymation. A digitalized day/date/time flickered in the bottom margin. Impatiently Moffitt fast-forwarded through a blurry conga line of truckers, traveling salesmen, stiff-legged tourists and bingeing teenagers whose unwholesome diets and nicotine addictions made the Grab N'Go a gold mine for the Dutch holding company that owned it.
Finally Moffitt came to JoLayne Lucks, walking through the swinging glass doors. She wore jeans, a baggy sweatshirt and big round sunglasses, probably the peach-tinted ones. The camera's clock flashed 5:15 p.m. One minute later she was standing at the counter. Moffitt chuckled when he saw the roll of Certs; spearmint, undoubtedly. JoLayne dug into her purse and gave some money to the pudgy teenage clerk. He handed her the change in coins, plus one ticket from the Lotto machine. She said something to the clerk, smiled, and went out the door into the afternoon glare.
Moffitt backed up the tape, to review the smile. It was good enough to make him ache.
He'd left Puerto Rico a day early, after the de la Hoya cousins wisely discarded their original explanation of the three hundred Chinese machine guns found in their beach house at Rincon (to wit: they'd unknowingly rented the place to a band of leftist guerrillas posing as American surfers). Attorneys for the de la Hoyas realized they were in trouble when they noticed jurors smirking (and, in one case, suppressing a giggle) as the surfer alibi was presented during opening statements. After a hasty conference, the de la Hoyas decided to jump on the government's offer of a plea bargain, thus sparing Moffitt and a half dozen other ATF agents the drudgery of testifying. Once the case was settled, Moffitt's pals headed straight to San Juan in search of tropical pussy, while Moffitt flew home to help JoLayne.
Who was, naturally, nowhere to be found.
Moffitt had known she wouldn't take his advice, wouldn't back off and wait. There was nothing to be done; she was as stubborn as a mule. Always had been.
Finding her, if she was still alive, meant finding the Lotto robbers whom she undoubtedly was tracking. For clues Moffitt returned to the apartment of Bodean James Gazzer, which appeared to have been abandoned in a panic. The food in the kitchen was beginning to rot, and the ketchup message on the walls had dried to a gummy brown crust. Moffitt made another hard pass through the rooms and came up with a crumpled eviction notice for a rented trailer lot in the boonies of Homestead. Scratched in pencil on the back of the paper were six numbers that matched the ones on JoLayne's stolen lottery ticket.
Moffitt was on his way out the apartment door when the phone rang. He couldn't resist. The caller was a deputy for the Monroe County sheriffs office, inquiring about a 1996 Dodge Ram pickup truck that had been found stripped near the Indian Key fill, on the Overseas Highway. The deputy said the truck was registered to one Bodean J. Gazzer.
"That you?" the deputy asked on the phone.
"My roommate," Moffitt said.
"Well, when you see him," said the deputy, "could you ask him to give us a holler?"
"Sure thing." Moffitt thinking: So the assholes ran to the Keys.
Immediately he began calling marinas, working south from Key Largo and asking (in his most persuasive agent-speak) about unusual rentals or thefts. That's how he learned about the Whaler overdue in Islamorada, rented to a "nigrah girl with a sassy tongue," according to the old cracker at the motel dock. The Coast Guard already had a bird up, so Moffitt made another call and got cleared to tag along. He was waiting at Opa-Locka when the chopper came in for refueling.
Ninety minutes later they'd spotted her – JoLayne with her new friend, Krome. Tooling along in the missing skiff.
Watching through the binoculars, Moffitt had felt sheepish for worrying so much about her. But who in his right mind wouldn't?
After the helicopter dropped him off, Moffitt drove to Homestead to locate the house trailer from which a man known to his landlord as "Chub Smith" was being evicted. It was a dented single-wide on a dirt road way out in farm country. Inside, Moffitt came across piles of old gun magazines, empty ammo boxes, a white power T-shirt, a fry o.j. sweatshirt, a god bless marge schott pennant, and (in the bedroom) a makeshift forgery operation for handicapped-parking permits – the quality of which, Moffitt noted, was pretty darn good.
The mail was sparse and unrevealing, bills and gun-shop flyers addressed to "C. Smith" or "C. Jones" or simply "Mr. Chub." Not a scrap of paper offered a hint to the tenant's true identity, but Moffitt felt certain it was the pony tailed partner of Bodean James Gazzer. A clot of grimy long strands in the shower drain seemed to confirm the theory.
Parked outside the trailer was an old Chevrolet Impala. Moffitt made a note of the license tag before popping the trunk (where he found a canvas rifle case and a five-pound carton of beef jerky), checking under the seats (two roach clips and a mangled Outmagazine) and unlatching the glove box (the video cassette now playing in his VCR).
Moffitt turned off the tape player and opened a beer. He wondered what had happened while he was out of the States, wondered where the white-trash robbers were. Wondered what JoLayne Lucks and her new friend Tom had been up to.
He dialed her number in Grange and left a message on the machine: "I'm back. Call me as soon as you can."
Then he went to sleep wondering how much he ought to ask, and how much he really needed to know.
Mary Andrea Finley Krome sparkled like a movie star.
That's what everyone at The Registerwas saying. Even the managing editor admitted she was a knockout.
She'd gotten her short hair highlighted and her nails done, put on tiny gold hoop earrings, pale-rose lipstick, sheer stockings and a stunningly short black skirt. The coup de grace was the rosary beads, dangling sensually from Mary Andrea's fingertips.
When she entered the newsroom, the police reporter turned to the managing editor: "Tom must've been nuts to walk out on that."
Maybe, thought the managing editor. Maybe not.
The elegant widow walked up to him and said, "So, where are they?"
"In the lobby."
"I just came through the lobby. I didn't see any cameras."
"We've got ten minutes," the managing editor said. "They'll be here, don't worry."
Mary Andrea asked, "Is there a place where I can be alone?"
The managing editor glanced helplessly around the newsroom, which offered all the privacy of a bus depot.
"My office," he suggested, unenthusiastically, and headed downstairs for a Danish. When he returned, he was intercepted by an assistant city editor.
"Guess what Mrs. Krome is doing in there."
"Weeping uncontrollably?"
"No, she's – "
"Doubled over with grief?"
"Get serious."
"Rifling through the desk. That's my bet."
"No, she's rehearsing," the assistant city editor reported. "Rehearsing her lines."
"Perfect," said the managing editor.
When they got to the lobby, crews from three local television stations were waiting, including the promised Fox affiliate. A still photographer from The Registerarrived (properly sullen about the assignment), boosting the media contingent to four.
"Not exactly a throng," Mary Andrea griped.
The managing editor smiled coldly. "It is, by our modest standards."